Diary of a Marked Woman - June 2004

On Tues. the 8th I got my RMI allowance and went to the supermarket. As soon as I got in two women followed me into the store and one called out to the other one in a loud voice "Brigitte! Brigitte!" Of course I knew that it wasn't addressed to me on the first degree because I didn't know anybody who would call me this way, but I knew that it was intended for me, to harass me, in the second degree. Just a few days earlier, as I was about to enter my building, a woman said to a little girl "Axelle! Axelle, come on!" And I knew it appeared not to be for me tho it was.

Fri. the 10th: Looks like I was right to mistrust this bogus construction site next to the Melville library rue Tolbiac. I wondered why there was a space against the walkway where the fence is as high as a door and as wide as two doors, when the rest of the fence is waist high. I mulled it over for a space and came out with the conclusion that the reason was to conceal something, then I thought that the "something" was the attack. Yes, the event where, as I passed by, I would be attacked by two or more men./p>

A few days later (last Friday)I came to see why this precise spot had been chosen as the site of the attack so I took a peek at the walkway from a safe distance and saw a BRIGHT, (NEW?) RED sign that said in clean, pure white letters and an arrow "fioul vanne police" or something like that and there was a narrow walkway leading to the building. So I had been right! The attackers would have been lying in wait in the room that the small path led to, and would have been informed of my approach by cell phone so that, just when I reached the double-wide high fence, they would have come out of the little "fioul" room, neutralized me out of sight of any possible witness behind the double-wide high fence, and they would have spirited me away into the underground whose entrance is adjacent to the library, right next to the planned attack site. The underground entrance has a sign that shows it is prohibited except for the firefighters. Maybe an official vehicle would have been waiting at the entrance, a police car maybe, to carry me into the underworld, terminate me with extreme prejudice and process my mortal remains into components that could be safely incorporated to the new bicycle lane roadbed on rue Nationale. Because, you see, there's a large underground part under the Olympiades housing and commercial complex, and several entrances, at least one on three streets that border it. So coming in rue de Tolbiac and coming out (in small parts) rue Nationale would be child's play. Ahem, some child. And the requirements of a successful covert op would have been fulfilled: in broad daylight to allay suspicion, and yet, like in Operation Roadkill nobody see nuthin', goodbye Brigitte!

O Pluto, you the god and ruling planet of my astrological sign, O you, the god of the underworld, of organized crime, the god of abduction and mysterious disappearances... it wasn't your time that time.

I've been taking pix of the things that seem fishy to me and the day after I photographed the new red sign "fioul vanne police" something, there was a deep pit on the rue Nationale left of the entrance to Olympiades complex when you face it and I can't see any reason for this pit other than a threat, since the work being done seems to be the construction of a bicycle lane and flower planters, which doesn't require any deep digging. Oh, well, I'm still alive but I can TASTE how pissed off it makes some people feel.

On Fri. the 11th I went to La Page Massena, a stationary and nexwsstore that has internet access. I owed them 8.10 euro since last month and was ready to make good on my debt so I could spend one hour on the internet. So I came up to the cash register and said "I came to pay the 8.10 I owe you since last month." "It's 8.30!" the guy said as if I had been trying to swindle him. So I paid than asked for copies and went deeper into the store. The guy there refused to help me tho I didn't know how to run the machine to make enlargements and reductions. After I had made a few mistakes and finally gotten the right size I left the machine and the guy called to me that I had to reset it. I said if the customers had to do all the work what was he doing there exactly? Then I asked to use a computer for internet access, where it's 3 euro/hr. He didn't want to give me the one in the quiet corner saying it was for the staff to work on and instead gave me the one in the center that wasn't even turned on. After it had started I sat down and then the boss started talking Farsi very close to me and loud and fast to a co-worker. I researched blackwork embroidery and clicked on the printer icon but nothing happened so I clicked again and again... and then the boss picked up triumphantly some sheets that came out of the printer and counted them: 25 sheets at 30 cents each. I argued with him that the computer had not reacted when I clicked on the printer icon etc... then I realized that there should have been a dialog box asking how many copies I wanted and which pages and accused the boss of having suppressed the dialog box. He insisted that I owed all the sheets. When my time was up I refused to pay for the 4 X 5 copies since I had only wanted one set but the guy who had refused to help me earlier wrote a ticket for 10 euros and change. "You know I'm having trouble to pay you yet you take advantage of me." "Hey, it's not our fault if you have money problems. Go tell this to Chirac, not to us!" I said I would pay for one hr internet and one set of copies, nothing more and turned to leave. "Stop her" the worker said in a voice that wasn't intended to be heard. I walked out without rushing and understood that this had been set up by my mother Claire Picart and her octopus org to deny me another spot with internet access. It was the third spot that was denied me.

Went to the G20 supermarket later and once more the exact spots where I wanted to pick up merchandise were difficult of access. A caddy was in front of the pasta and a black stockman was blocking access to the shelves where I wanted to take some ratatouille. There were no more tissues at 79 cents a 10 x 10 pax, which I'm using as toilet paper since I can't afford a 3.50 sixpack of real tp. And at the line for paying a black man with 2 small girls was just behind me and one of the girls was moving around me, brushing against me and when I was putting the merch in my bag after paying she was standing right between me and the counter where my things were so I lost patience and said something like "Can't you be careful?" and I knew I had lost because I had showed she got to me. Since childhood I knew that showing your displeasure was the surest way to encourage my folks to keep doing it and the best way to make them stop was to pretend indifference. 9 euros left until next month.

Tues. the 15th: Two young men talking and laughing in the library after 12 noon. When I complain to the attendant (long brown hair, late 30's) she says that this is the way society is going, that she doesn't hear them, that they aren't making a lot of noise, that this isn't a university library and a little noise is to be tolerated. I check the Règlement and see in Articles 1 and 3 that the library staff is reauired to enforce the rules, including the rules against any disturbance to the reading public, and that people who create a disturbance are to be warned or excluded. So I tell the woman that the rules are on my side but nevertheless she refuses to ask the young men to shut up. So I ask for her name and she refuses to give it to me. I say I'm going to complain about her to the Chief of the Library.

Later at the Melville libr. a young tanned foreigner is there when I arrive 5 mins late for my internet appt. I tell her it's my turn. She has tanned legs and looks to me like an American tourist checking her e-mail so what on earth is she doing here since internet access is only for people who have a library card?

When my half hour is up nobody shows up so I stay and ten mins before 5 the attendant (tall woman in her late (à's with grey hair) tells me I have ten mins left. I say ok, and 5 mins later she says "This is it, you have to leave." But I still had five mins! The bitch told me I had 10 mins and she asked me to quit after 5. So I didn't move and kept looking at pix of NYC but wondered if she was going to exclude me later on that flimsy pretext so I gave it up.

Later I asked the young woman at the "Cyber emploi" space to sign me up for next week because if I waited until after my next appt next fri. to make a new one she would tell me that it was all booked up for the next week. She said that she wasn't supposed to do this, it was against the rules, to make an appointment before the next one has been done, meaning she was going to break the rules for me;

Back home I realized that these two incidents at Melville were an answer to my threat of complaint to the Library Chief. The two women broke the rules for me, the first one by letting me stay on the computer after she asked me to leave (though she asked 5 mins. earlier than planned) and the 2nd one by making an appt before I had taken the next one (she wasn't supposed to). And so they have acted like my mother acted during my childhood, saying she broke the rules for me though I wasn't trying to violate any, thereby coercing me into being her accomplice in law-breaking, and in this manner buying my silence. Yes, it's very, very devious.

Checked the spot that the red sign "vanne police fuel" led to. It's a stairway going down. So the would-be assassins would have waited in the stairwell. Funny that I can check this spot only a peek at a time. Gives me the creeps. (Note: what the sign says exactly is "vanne police cuve fioul", which doesn't mean anything at all [7/03])

Bought needlework and Native American artifacts books. Completely broke until July 8. No money to pay for utilities.

Returned to ISTM computer store at 67 bd St Germain. The tech guy told me that the procedure to restart my computer was very risky, that there was a high risk of losing data, that he wouldn't attempt it unless I signed a release first. So I said with a Carol Lay smile "This way, if someone pays you under the table to delete some data, you're covered." I insisted that he was making a big issue out of a simple problem, that there was no need to consider the worst case scenario before he had attempted the simple remedy to re-start my computer with a boot diskette. After all, it had failed because I had started it with a data diskette in drive A so what was the big issue? But he said that in any event I had to leave it to him at least ONE WEEK. He wouldn't try to restart it in front of me, of course because it's so simple and easy and he needed time to go thru my files to delete the hot ones, those that contain evidence of criminal activity. He said that he had ten years experience, and that he never attempted to re-start a computer unless the client was fully aware of the risk of losing data, and that he always sent them to a specialist in data recovery. My foot! I turned around and left the store without another word. Now I'm schlepping six or 7 lbs in my back and the thing doesn't even work. At least the tech schmuck didn't mention changing my hard disk this time, he may have heard about my strong opposition to this tactic of evidence legerdemain.

When I got to my nabe I parked my bike in front of the bakery and as I was about to leave a woman on a motor scooter came up to the spot where I was. Apparently she wanted to park at the same pole. She said something like "Make some room for me, I want to park here." And there aren't many many ways you can attach your bike to a pole with a U-lock so I told her to manage on her own, I wasn't going to untie my bike for her. So she rammed her scooter into my bike THREE TIMES. She was wearing an integral helmet so I didn't see her face. I looket at her in disbelief. "I gotta go to the pharmacist, I gotta buy medicines for my father so get out of the way and let me park here, that's my spot." "I don't care what you've got to do. Hey, this is Paris. Leave me alone and find another parking spot," I told her. "Be careful," she said, "Be very, very careful! I'm bad, but not as bad as I can be, and I'm not even a man, so you just wait," she said. "You're completely antisocial!" I told her. She kneeled down and passed her chain around the pole and locked her scooter. I went to the bakery, then to the Chinese store and when I was back ten mins later her chain was passed thru my front wheel. I stood for a space not knowing what to do, then she appeared and, very generously removed her chain from my bike. "You should see a psychiatrist," she said. "I feel fine, thank you," I said. "But what you need is not a shrink but a stay in prison. I'm not violating your rights but you're violating mine." "Violating..." she said. "Yes, you're violating my rights, so start by respecting them and then we'll see if there's any need to speak of a psychiatrist."

Tues. the 22nd: I'm entirely fed up with lentils. Can't stand their smell anymore but it's the cheapest food around. Last sat had to give back rice, spaghetti, cheese, soap etc. at the supermarket bec' the refund of the books had not yet been credited to my account. Had only 6 euros in cash. Thanks mom, thanks Sophie!

Today i had an appt at the "cyber-emploi" dept at Melville libr. When I was done I asked the young lady for another appt next week xo I was surprised when she gave me one for Fri. "But isn't it the rule that we have no more than one appt per week?" I asked. With some convolutions she explained that we couldn't take more than one appt per week but it was ok to have two sessions per week. Oh. So I took an appt for next Fri.

That night I couldn't sleep and I realized that the young lady at the cyber emploi spot was setting me up to be excluded from this service, just like another woman had done previously with the internet by proposing to sign me up for a Sat. where I was already signed up earlier.

On Wed. the 23rd I went to check out this bead shop in my nabe, called "le détail qui tue". Ahem, don't like that name much. Went there around 11:45. Shop was closed, two young ladies waiting in front of it. I asked them what time it opened. They said it was supposed to open at 11:30. I waited a few mins then asked them what was "la tendance" in France bec' I hadn't been in the country for a long time and didn't know. They couldn't tell. One of them told me "Arm bands are out." Then I expressed surprise at the fact the store was closed and one of the two told me the lady was great, she knew everything about beading, and she would let you copy the models in her store and take all the time you needed to do it. But I thought it disrespectful toward the customers for a store owner not to open in time and decided I didn't want anything to do with this woman.

Plus, with a name like this, imagine being absorbed in some beading project in her store and all of a sudden, before you know it, well... something untoward happens to you. And why didn't the young ladies know ANYTHING about beading?

At 13:30 I had internet appt at Melville and when I was done I went to the cyber emploi spot and cancelled my Fri reservation, saying I couldn't make it, so she proposed Saturday! I said I couldn't either so she signed me up for next Tues.

Fri the 25th: I went early to my internet appt at Melville. The young black (but non-African) girl (hard to tell if she's above or under 12 bec' she's very small) was there and five mins before the end of her session a male white adolescent joined her. She allowed him to take control of the computer, he sat down at it and did something. Then they both left fifteen mins. before the start of my session. But when I tried to start, the connection to the internet was off and the password had to be re-entered. The attendant, a woman I had never seen before, came to see and didn't want to enter the pw, she said that the screen that appeared was not the usual screen and she preferred to wait for her colleague, so we waited. She said nobody was signed up after me so I didn't have to worry, I would have time after the end of my session. I was calm. The colleague arrived and re-entered the pw. Another attendant came (the first one I ever saw, a fem. with curly mahogany hair) and five mins. after the start of my session a young man asked to sign up and he was signed up for the half hour following me so I wouldn't have any extra time, and five mins. before the end of my session the attendant told me I had to stop. I stayed to look at a picture book for about two hours and the young man was at the internet typing away the whole time.

About the "funny" construction sites, the "funny" barrier, the "funny" sign etc. I haven't mentioned that early in the story, shortly after the car blocked my way on rue Nationale and I started taking pix of the construction, I was at a standstill at the entrance of the Olympiades complex when an old man in a new old-geezer-SUV drove out with his window open. I asked him something abt what was going on bec' nobody was working at the site that day tho the traffic was very disturbed by the narrowness of the street. The old man told me that "they" were building a bike lane, but in fact it's not a bike lane that was built, just a nice sidewalk with paving stones and tree planters with grills on top. So why did he say this? Was it to allay my anger and make me feel good? And then just after he was gone an old couple walked by and the old lady said this was a shame the car-traffic was so drastically reduced because "they" were always trying to sell more and more cars.

Another thing I wanted to report is that the very first time I took the other way by the rue Baudricourt I had the absolute certaintly that I was doing exactly what "they" wanted me to do...

A point I think is important is that I parked twice against the green railing along the bldg on rue Tolbiac and both times when I left an incident irritated me so that the third time I parked somewhere else, near the bus stop on a narrow island between the street and a counter-alley, same side of the street nearer Baudricourt. Once when I was waking back to my bike on the safe side of the bogus construction with the funny fence, a young man came up behind me noiselessly and passed me very very close, holding a tennis racket in a sheath. I noticed also that after I started taking Baudricourt the bums at the corner disappeared and came back when I made clear I wouldn't walk against the bldg. You know, they could have been witnesses!